“I walked backstage and there’s some real aliens back there walking around like models,” host Andrew Rannells joked at this year’s Jeffrey Fashion Cares. “I feel like Sloth from Goonies.”
But Jeffrey Kalinsky’s fashion fundraiser didn’t take over New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum to make Tony nominees and mere mortals alike feel bad about their looks. The annual fashion show and auction has raised over $11 million for organizations serving LGBT youth and people living with HIV/AIDS over the past 22 years. Fabulous and fashionable boldface names like Joel Grey, Transparent’s Hari Nef, trans model Andreja Pejic, activist Omar Sharif Jr., celebrity stylist Zaldy, New York party doyenne Susanne Bartsch, designer Thom Browne, and Real Housewife LuAnn de Lesseps gathered in the decommissioned battleship’s hanger to raise funds for ACRIA, the Hetrick-Martin Institute, and Lambda Legal and to honor activist Peter Staley.
Check out photos from the runway as well as shots of the show’s gorgeous male models living it up backstage.
Photos by BFA/courtesy of Purple PR. Backstage photos by Kevin Tachman